Bangor Schools Are Betting On New Computer System * Equipment Proves To Be An Emotional Issue At Workshop Meeting.

September 10, 1997|by MIKE FRASSINELLI, The Morning Call

Cheers turned to silence, a parent of three schoolchildren sparred verbally with members of a taxpayer group, and a technology consultant won a $1 bet with a cursing school director.

Talk about Bangor Area School District's $4.5 million computer system always seems to bring out varying emotions, and a presentation on the system at Monday night's school board workshop session was no different.

A consultant hired to identify problems in the sometimes-criticized computer system said board members might have been too aggressive by trying to implement the system within three years.

Without a huge staff in place to address problems such as computer lockups and bugs, "I would have told the board to do it over five years," technical consultant Tim Curran of Allentown said to the applause of an ever-present area taxpayer group.

The loud cheers by the Bangor Area School Taxpayers Oversight Committee turned to silence when Curran said it would have cost $7 million to implement the system over five years.

The workshop session was a tug of war between residents concerned about the cost of the system and a parent who said the school board and administration were taking undue criticism.

"This is the millennium coming up, you have to know it all," said Carol Daus, mother of three district students. "This is good, well spent money. You can't spend enough on a kid's education."

Daus, whose family just moved to the Bangor district from a computerized school district in northern New Jersey, sparred verbally with some members of the taxpayer group.

After hearing enough of School Director Ron Angle's cursing, she called out, "Watch your mouth!"

"Sit down and shut up!" an Angle supporter told her.

In addition, Angle went home $1 poorer after losing a bet with Curran.

The school director wagered the technology consultant couldn't give him a good reason why the school board was constantly told that the computer project was satisfactory when there were problems.

"Month after month after month, everything is `all right,' and we never even had the engineer in the locomotive seat," Angle said.

Curran won the buck for his answer that a computer vendor is akin to a "used-car salesman" whom he doesn't trust.

Outside the meeting, Curran clarified that he goes into every project with the mindset that vendors are like used-car salesmen, until they prove differently.

With Bangor's system, he stressed, "There is no used-car salesman."

Curran said the computer lockups generally don't last more than two minutes and affect only a small group of computers at a time. But the problem could turn costly if it is determined that transmitters and receivers are needed to correct the problem.

The cost would be $60,000, about the last thing the taxpayer group wants to hear.